


Hollstein IN SPAAACE

by TheLunarLorkhan



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 02:55:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7203557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLunarLorkhan/pseuds/TheLunarLorkhan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hollstein AU where Laura is a military engineer posted at a boring old space station and Carmilla is mercenary sent to guard her! Big events are coming for them...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hollstein IN SPAAACE

Laura harrumphed at her malfunctioning equipment as she worked her way through some of the space station’s electronic systems. Being an engineer on a space station orbiting a gorgeous gas giant was less glamorous than it seemed. Truth be told, Laura was bored out of her mind.

It didn’t help that she was completely alone.

Her hope had been to be stationed on a ship, but apparently not a single ship needed an engineer with many honors from her university and a year of experience working on some of the military’s most advanced technology in the labs as a mere intern.

Laura tried not to feel too bitter.

As Laura grumbled at her tools that desperately needed repairs of their own, she heard an alert on her monitor. She groaned as she pulled herself out of the access point of the station’s outer camera systems. Wiping her brow, she opened the alert on her monitor.

There was a ship docking with the space station. The system claimed it was a military vessel.

That was odd. There wasn’t supposed to be a ship coming until the next week.

Laura pressed down on the mic button on her monitor. “Unidentified ship, you are breaking protocol by docking without notice. Please confirm identification.”

No response.

Laura started getting a bad feeling about this.

“Unidentified ship,” she said again, “Confirm identification.”

Laura quickly shut the doors leading into her control room and pulled out an emergency pistol from its compartment in the room.

Laura ran through the scenarios in her head. Pirates? Mercenaries? Pirate mercenaries?

God, her dad was never going to let her leave their house after this.

After some time passed, her monitor told Laura that there was someone approaching one of the doors to the room. She gripped her pistol and held it out in front of her at the door. She had been trained with light weaponry, but didn’t know if a small pistol would help against whoever had gotten into the station.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Laura narrowed her eyes. She had expected to hear someone placing, say, a detonation charge on the door.

What kind of pirate knocked on the door?

Laura, puzzled when whoever was on the other side of the door knocked again, pressed the communication button on her work station, saying, “Speak into the mic on the door. Identify yourself.”

After a moment, Laura’s speakers crackled and a bored-sounding voice said, “Uh, yeah hey. Your boss paid me to come and guard you so I’m here to do that.”

Laura raised an eyebrow. If this person was a pirate, they were really bad at it.

“Okay…” Laura said, “What’s your name? And why didn’t you answer me from your ship? And why didn’t you ask for permission to dock? What’s your rank?”

“Woah, cupcake,” the voice said, chuckling. “One question at a time. The name’s Carmilla Karnstein. I don’t have a rank, and my ship’s communication systems are broken because the ship your buddies gave me is garbage, hence why I couldn’t talk to you from the ship. By the way, can we open this door? This is getting a little awkward.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t help me not think you’re just a pirate here to kill me and take whatever you want from the station.”

There was more chuckling from the speaker. “Not a pirate, cutie, but close guess. I’m a mercenary. Apparently your military didn’t want to send a real soldier out here, so they decided to spring for me instead. I can transmit my authorization if you give me the code to this station’s monitoring system. You got a monitor in there?”

Laura hesitated and said, “Yes. The code is E-2121.”

After a moment, Carmilla said, “There. Take a look.”

Laura looked at her monitor as another alert popped up. Opening it, Laura saw an electronic document that said, “This document authorizes Carmilla Karnstein to act as low-level military personnel for the purposes of official protection. Provide standard level access to Carmilla Karnstein for the duration of their contract, which expires on October 23, standard galactic time.”

Laura looked at the bottom of the document and saw the electronic signature of her superior officer, so it was legitimate.

Sighing, but still holding her gun, she went to open the door. Once it was open, she held her gun at the stranger just in case but she suddenly felt like her stomach did a backflip.

Carmilla was a young woman, probably around Laura’s age, and she was excessively _gorgeous_. The woman had deep black hair that was tied into a ponytail. Her eyebrows were very prominent and sharp, and she had an almost perfectly symmetrical jawline. She was wearing simple armor plating and clutched a helmet at her hip. On her back was a plasma rifle with a number of upgrades and modifications.

Carmilla raised one of her eyebrows at Laura’s raised gun. “Careful there, cupcake. I showed you my document, remember?”

Laura sheepishly lowered her gun. “Sorry, just… Didn’t expect anyone to come out here until next week.”

Carmilla shrugged. “I don’t know about that. I’m here now though.”

“I see… Well my name is Laura by the way. Private Laura Hollis.”

“Nice to meet you, Laura. You already saw my name on that document, or did you forget it?”

Laura raised an eyebrow. “No, I didn’t forget.”

Laura began to tell her where she could find a bed, but Carmilla waved her off saying, “Don’t worry cutie, got a nice comfy bed on my ship. Brought some supplies with me too.”

Carmilla’s laid back attitude and the nicknames she used caught Laura off guard. Carmilla was definitely not a soldier, as her behavior probably would have gotten her kicked out of any section of the military, but she moved as if she wasn’t weighed down by her armor. Laura also noted a scar peeking out from the bottom of her neck.

Sitting on one of the chairs in the room, Carmilla put her boots up on a control panel, which was also totally against military regulation. Laura told her as much, but Carmilla shrugged, saying “Eh, I’m not technically military so I doubt it matters. This place has seen better days too, so I’m sure I’m not making it worse than it already is.”

Laura had to admit that Carmilla was right. This space station, which was an old military outpost, had not received much attention in recent years. Some of her buddies in her engineering group called it, “the ass end of space.”

“So,” Carmilla continued, “How did a pretty girl like yourself end up stationed here? Did ya piss someone off?”

Laura blinked. “No, they just said that the last group here was being switched out and that I should take their place for the time being. Even though I’ve applied and am qualified to work on a ship…”

Carmilla raised an eyebrow again. Laura couldn’t help but be drawn in by girl’s dark eyes.

 _Focus Laura, you can’t get distracted on a military assignment by a pretty face_.

“Sounds like you’re holding some resentment,” Carmilla said.

Laura sighed and sat down in her own chair. “I’m just frustrated because I feel like I was passed over for better jobs. I wanted to be assigned to a huge cruiser or even a small frigate as a member of the engineering team. It doesn’t help that this outpost is usually assigned to people who actually do piss off the higher-ups, but I can’t even think of anything I’ve done to upset them.” Laura was unsure as to why she was telling this woman she just met some of her personal thoughts.

“Well if you’re lucky, you won’t be here too long,” Carmilla said, playing with her nails.

“The last group was here for four months.”

Carmilla stopped playing with her nails. “I see… That might mean I’m stuck here for that long too, since they told me to act as security for the duration of your stay.”

“Yeah…”

“So you said some people will come by in a week?”

Laura sighed again. “Yeah, they’re supposed to send a small ship with an officer to periodically check in, bring supplies, and make sure people stationed here are okay… And still sane.”

“That’s lovely.” After a pause, Carmilla gave her a smirk and said, “If you ever want to change your job, I’m sure you could find work as a mercenary engineer. It would be much more exciting.”

Laura gave Carmilla a look. “I can’t just leave the military when my career has barely started.”

Carmilla shrugged. “Well, just sayin’, it’s not a bad line of work.” After another pause and another smirk, Carm said, “We could be business partners.”

Laura’s mind did a backflip. Was this mercenary she had just met flirting with her??

No, not possible. Laura berated herself but still felt shocked.

Laura stammered. “I uh… Uh. Thanks but again, I have a military career ahead of me...”

Carmilla pouted slightly and _oh God_ why was she so attractive?

Laura decided to distract herself with some stuff on her monitor.

A few moments later, the monitor began beeping insistently. Laura pulled up the notification and saw a green dot marked with “station” next to it… And to the right of the green dot were dozens of red dots, and the number seemed to increase.

No… That can’t be right. Laura refreshed the screen, but the dots were still there. Suddenly, the station’s announcer came over the intercom, crackling due to its age. _“Attention, all personnel. Multiple warp signatures detected.”_

The station then shook violently, throwing Laura off of her chair. Carmilla was in a similar situation, struggling to get up.

The station’s alarms immediately kicked in and the automated announcer said, “ _Station under attack. This is not a drill. All military personnel, report to your officers and prepare for combat operations.”_

The station shook again, and this time Laura knew that something was seriously damaged. She looked at the monitor and quickly pulled up a blueprint of the station, seeing that the bottom half had been completely torn away.

“Shit, the stabilizers have been destroyed!” Laura yelled. Carmilla grabbed Laura’s arm as Laura typed something out onto the monitor.

“What are you doing?!” Carmilla demanded. “We need to go. We can take my ship!”

“No!” Laura shouted as the station shook violently again. “I need to send a distress signal and initiate a protocol.”

“What are you talking about? What protocol?!”

Laura shouted as she punched in security codes at lightning speed. “Protocol states that in the event of a losing battle, all necessary measures are to be taken to ensure that information does not end up in the hands of the enemy. I’d say we’re losing the battle here, fast, so we need to blow this place before running.”

Cursing, Carmilla held on to one of the walls as the station took more hits. The monitor showed complete shield failure and catastrophic damage to various points along the space station.

The crackling voice over the intercom returned, saying “ _Attention: forced entry onto the station detected. Prepare for boarding action.”_ Carmilla pulled out her plasma rifle and primed it. “Cupcake, we’re going to have company so wrap it up quick!”

After Laura put in the last code she needed, the monitor presented a message saying, “ _Please confirm.”_ Laura practically punched the confirmation button. The announcer spoke again. _“Security protocol initiated. All personnel evacuate. Station destruction in ten minutes or until all personnel have evacuated.”_

Laura yelled, “Okay, now we can go!”

Carmilla slapped on her helmet, approached the door and motioned for her and Laura to stand on either side of it with their weapons out. Carmilla triggered the door to open and waited. After a moment, and when no weapon fire came through the door, they went out into the hallway with their guns out and ready.

The hallway was split in four total directions in a cross. “My ship is down the left hallway,” Carm said quietly. Just then, a series of whirring, mechanical noises came from the right hallway.

A mechanical construct dashed out into the cross of the hallways. It was massive, about the size of a huge tiger, and walked on four legs like one as well. It let out a mechanical shriek and a strange metal frill expanded from the base of its “neck,” covering its face and most of its front legs. The frill hummed and glowed with blue energy. From the machine’s mouth, energy pulses shot out rapidly. Laura and Carmilla dodged behind some crates and returned fire. Their bolts were simply absorbed by the machine’s frill, which was apparently a shield.

“How are we supposed to get past that?!” Laura shouted.

“I don’t know,” Carmilla shouted back after firing again. “Dammit! My suit says there’s a fuck-ton of other signatures on the way. Probably buddies of that monster shooting at us.”

“Define a fuck-ton!”

“I can’t count all the signatures, but we need to go!”

The announcer spoke over the speaker again. _“Attention: 8 minutes until station detonation.”_

Laura waited for the machine to end its current salvo of fire and fired back. She ducked as it returned fire quickly. Something caught her eye, though. Risking a peek out of the side of the crate she saw it stop firing and start up again. The shield that covered its face seemed to pulse and flash shortly after it fired, and Laura could swear that for a moment, the machine’s “nose” was exposed, even if only for a few seconds. She said as much to Carmilla who looked to see for herself.

“I’ll fire and get its attention,” Carmilla said quietly.

Before Laura could respond, Carmilla flicked a part of her plasma rifle and fired an extremely rapid salvo of plasma bolts at the machine. It whirred again under the pressure and fired back at Carmilla, who ducked under cover again to deal with her overheating rifle. Laura took her chance, aimed for the creature’s nose, and fired off several bolts with her pistol. She heard the satisfying noise of energy striking metal, and the mechanical creature staggered as its nose sparked. It fired back again, but its bolts were slower and some didn’t even leave the creature’s nose, causing it to heat up and melt.

Laura noted with satisfaction that the creature was more or less damaging itself now. Laura let it finish its attack and fired again, this time causing the creatures head to spark and heat up due the damage it was now, finally, sustaining.

Carmilla took a turn in taking advantage of the creature’s attack pattern, firing her more powerful plasma rifle at the creature’s now almost completely exposed head. Carmilla pressed some other button on the rifle and the tip of the barrel glowed before releasing a pulse the size of a soccer ball at the machine. When the machine’s head was hit by the projectile, it melted and exploded. The rest of the machine’s now unshielded body buckled and collapsed.

Laura let out a whooping cry as they got out of cover and rushed past the still twitching robot body.

They had not gotten far when they heard more whirring noises behind them. Turning, Carmilla cursed and let loose more plasma bolts as the machine they thought they had killed got back up… And was now rushing towards them.

“What the fuck is this thing?!” Carmilla asked in between shots. “Keep moving, I’ll cover us.”

The machine creature followed them the whole way. Carmilla was at least wearing it down, but it appeared to be made of some very tough metal. It had claws on its feet, and it was trying to get close to them. Thankfully, Carmilla was more tenacious than the machine and suppressed it long enough for them to get to her ship. Shouting, Carmilla primed another plasma pulse from her rifle. The machine’s back right leg was blown off as a result, though it still scrambled to get close to them.

Practically shoving Laura into the ship, Carmilla fired a few more shots at the creature as the automated announcer said, _“Attenion: 5 minutes until station detonation.”_ Carmilla quickly sealed the ship door.

“Find somewhere stable to sit because this is going to be a bumpy takeoff,” Carmilla said. “My suit says the other contacts are just outside.”

In confirmation, the ship’s hatch through which Laura had just come through was hit by… Something. Likely more energy projectiles from the machines.

Carmilla rushed to the cockpit while Laura strapped herself to a seat near the hatch, in case the machines broke through.

The ship’s engines came to life, and the docking clamps disengaged. The ship shook as something big hit it, and Laura could hear the ships alarms along with the station alarms.

The vessel lurched forward as the machines continued their assault, firing what must have been some kind of rocket.

To Laura’s relief, the ship finally made it clear of the hangar and she could see out some of the windows that they were in space. Unbuckling herself from her seat, Laura risked a look outside one of the windows, and her jaw dropped.

Swarming around the space station like mosquitos were small ships, but those paled in comparison to the massive vessels that were launching the smaller ships.

Laura bolted to the cockpit, where Carmilla was frantically pressing buttons and dismissing alerts. “Did you see those ships?!” Laura asked.

“Of course I did!” Carmilla shouted back. “The sensors are going crazy and telling me they’re trying to get a lock on us.”

Laura saw another alert in Carmilla’s cockpit that said, “Detonation detected.”

That had to have been the space station exploding. As if knowing what Laura was thinking, Carmilla turned on the rear facing cameras on the ship. As planned, the entire station was obliterated. Laura noted that it had taken a lot of the smaller enemy ships with it.

A prominent red alert popped up on the cockpit dashboard. “Fuck!” Carmilla cried, almost making Laura jump. “One of their big ships locked onto us and is charging some weapon. I really don’t want to find out what it is.”

“Get us out of here!” Laura shouted.

“Warp drive is almost done charging at 95%. Fuck this antique ship!”

The alert on Carmilla’s dashboard continued to flash bright red. The ship then shook with several hits. “They sent fighters or _something_ to slow us down,” Carmilla said. “Get on the top gunner position!”

Laura nodded and ran to the center of the ship where a chair descended from the ceiling. She took the seat and was brought up into the ship’s top-mounted turret and began firing back at the fighters.

The ship’s alarm blared, and the automated announcer said, _“Prepare for impact.”_

Laura looked in horror as a part of one of the massive ships glowed a bright, angry red color. Just then, Laura heard Carmilla over the intercom saying, “Hang on!”

Through the glass canopy above her, Laura saw nothing but twisting, undulating color mixed with impenetrable darkness…

… And they arrived on the other side of a Warp.

Laura took a look around them and saw they were in space near a planet orbited by several space stations and a small fleet of military vessels. Laura let go of the turret controls, closed her eyes, and fell back into her seat, relief flooding through her.

“We made it,” she said.

Letting the turret seat descend, Laura kept trying to rationalize what she had seen. The only conclusion she could come to was that it was an invasion fleet.

Who the invaders were, however, escaped her. Laura had never seen a machine like that before.

Joining Carmilla in the cockpit, Laura said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” came the reply.

After an awkward moment of silence, Laura spoke up again. “Thanks, by the way. I don’t think I’d have made it if you hadn’t shown up.” The truth of that statement hit her hard.

Carmilla looked up and cracked a smile. “Not a problem, cupcake.”

Laura felt butterflies in her stomach again after hearing Carmilla’s tired, husky voice.

_Ugh. Get a hold of yourself, Hollis._

Another alert popped up on Carmilla’s dashboard. “Looks like your buddies in the military are hailing us. Ship's communications are still broken... Think they'll mind if I just park?”

Laura shook her head and leaned forward slightly to dismiss the alert, trying to ignore the fact that she was in closer proximity to Carmilla.

Carmilla steered the ship towards one of the space stations.

Laura hoped that the military would be able to prepare quickly. She had a feeling that what she and Carmilla had just survived was only the beginning of something far worse.

 

 

 


End file.
